Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources

Public Health Emergency Preparedness

This resource was part of AHRQ's Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) program, which was discontinued on June 30, 2011, in a realignment of Federal efforts.

This information is for reference purposes only. It was current when produced and may now be outdated. Archive material is no longer maintained, and some links may not work. Persons with disabilities having difficulty accessing this information should contact us at: https://info.ahrq.gov. Let us know the nature of the problem, the Web address of what you want, and your contact information.

The Essentials

This guide from Department of Health & Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) can help community planners prepare for public health emergencies, such as pandemic flu, when demand for medical resources outweighs supply. The guide includes information on ethical and legal issues, and on the provision of services to address pre-hospital, acute hospital care, alternative care sites, and palliative care during a public health emergency.

To illustrate how to apply these basic principles, the guide includes a special section on influenza pandemic preparedness. This new guide is an abbreviated version of Mass Medical Care with Scarce Resources, published by AHRQ in 2007.

Kelly J. Johnson, M.P.H.
Public Health Emergency Preparedness Research Program
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

The authors of this report are responsible for its content. No statement in the report should be construed as an official position of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This document is in the public domain and may be used and reprinted without permission except those copyrighted materials noted, for which further reproduction is prohibited without the express permission of copyright holders.

This report is based on the 2007 AHRQ publication, Mass Medical Care With Scarce Resources: A Community Planning Guide, developed with collaboration and funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response through an AHRQ contract to Health Systems Research, Inc., an Altarum company.

AHRQ Publication No. 09-0016
Current as of September 2009

The information on this page is archived and provided for reference purposes only.